MOBILE COMMERCE
CONTENTS
v 1.INTRODUCTION
v 2.EVOLVING OF AN INDUSTRY
v 3.WIRELESS USER INFRASTRUCTURE
v 4.WIRELESS AND MOBILE MIDDLEWARE
v 5.EXPRESSQ
v 6.ARCHITECTURE AND PROTOCOLS
v 7.WIRELESS ASP
v 8.TROUBLE IN WAP
v 9.SECURITY
v 10.SETTLEMENTS AND PAYMENTS
v 11.SPEED BUMPS
v 12.ADVANTAGES
v 13.TRAVEL INDUSTRY
v 14. ACTIVATING THE MOBILE MARKET
v 15. PROSPECTS
v 16.CONCLUSION
1 INTRODUCTION
Electronic commerce continues to see the phenomenal growth but, so far most e-commerce development involves wired infrastructures. We believe emerging wireless and mobile networks will provide new avenues for growth, creating new opportunities in mobile commerce.
Dotcom business may be falling by the wayside, but the percentage of commerce happening via the web continues to grow. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of cellular subscribers worldwide are gaining access to new wireless data choices, including Web enabled cell phones, handled computers and PDA’s.Combine these facts, and you get an industry with an unbelievable potential called mobile commerce or m-commerce.
Not convinced? How about this: A woman is looking at a DVD player in a store and is ready to buy, but she isn’t sure if the store is offering the best price. Using the micro browser on her cell, phone, she quickly determines that your online enterprise is selling the player for 10 percent less, she purchases it from you right then for delivery next day.
Or, you send your subscriber an alert on his Palm to him know tickets have just gone on sale for one of his favourite performers, before the subscriber even knows the singer is coming to twn/witnin minutes, the customer selects the best seats in his price range and purchases tickets from you.
Whether this convinces you or not, International Data corp. forecasts that $21billion worth of mobile commerce will take place in 20004,while Gartner Group predicts that 40 percent of B2c (business to consumer) e_commerce in that same year will occur over wireless connections. Already, the big e-commerce players, such as Amazon.com and Yahoo, are offering mobile options.
Content and applications must still be developed in multiple mobile formats. Security questions continue to dog the industry. And evolving payment systems and networks, markup languages and devices has made developing mobile commerce applications so complex that most organizations seeking to mobilize applications need help. Fortunately elp is available from a rapidly expanding array of middleware solutions wireless ASP(application service provider).
2.EVOLUTION OF AN INDUSTRY
The first big wireless applications deployed in the early 1990s, were field service and dispatch. Both applications facilitate commerce but don’t involve transactions. We focused on mobile commerce applications that involve actual transactions. In which a user securely purchases or sells goods or services. Current choices are a tiny subset of what will become possible with new technology, financial settlement systems, devices and networks.
Here’s how we see the market evolving
This year, companies will extend their e-commerce applications to mobile devices but will rely on existing settlement systems, such as charging a user’s credit account.
Now available in limited form, electronic wallets will facilitate transactions by providing a centralized way for users to maintain account and shipping information. Electronic wallets, whether hosted by portals, ASPs , banks of carriers will play an increasingly important role in mobile commerce.
Around 2002, new location technology will enable mobile-commerce applications that take a user’s location into account. Based on user preferences that address privacy issues, these applications will give users access to localized and personalized information.
Beginning around 2002 but evolving over decade, new financial settlement systems will allow secure transmission opf electronic cash on a wide or local area basis. Ecash Technologies is one of the pioneers in this area.
3. WIRELESS USER INFRASTRUCTURE
To realize these applications, we need several functional components, starting with a mobile device with sufficient memory, an appropriate display, and communications functionalities. Several suitable models are now available, such as Palm pilot a personal digital assistant(PDA) with a wireless modem and the Nokia Communicator a mobile phone with computing functions. These devices are oriented toward either communication or computing, but in the near future these distinctions could disappear as intelligent mobile devices evolve.
4. WIRELESS AND MOBILE MIDDLEWARE
Middleware unites different applications, tools, networks, and technologies, giving users a common interface. Mobile middleware is an enabling layer of software to connect e-commerce applications with different mobile networks and operating systems without introducing mobility awareness the need to adjust to wide variations in bandwidth and resulting delays, and changes in user location in the applications. Middleware gives applications better response times and far better reliability. Typically, middleware uses optimization techniques, such as header compression, delayed acknowledgements, and concatenation of several smaller packets into one to reduce wireless network traffic. Some middleware supports intelligent restarts, which take the user to the break point after disconnection instead of back to the beginning. Middleware, however, does introduce additional complexity and significant initial cost.
5. EXPRESSQ
Express Q from Nettech is mobile messaging middleware product that lets developers extend their non-IP applications to mobile users. It stores messages when mobile users are out of network range and forwards them later when users are in range. Express Q uses logical name addressing to allow network and device independence, supports several wireless networks, provides multiple application programming for developers, and lets mobile devices run different operating systems.
6. ARCHITECTURE AND PROTOCOLS
A Mobile commerce application can be broken down into three parts the user device, the Website hosting the application and the payment mechanism. In addition, various gateways come into play. In the simplest model, a Web site would deliver HTML directly to a mobile device, and a protocol such as SSl(secure sockets layer) or TLS(Transport Layer Security) would secure communications.
To settle transactions, the Web site would communicate with a financial network either directly or via a third party. This structure merely replaces a standard desktop browser with one operating on a mobile device and a wired link in fact, HTML browsers are available for Palm and Pocket Pc devices.
But most deployments are more complicated than this because of slow wireless-link speeds and multiple network and device type.
Most mobile-commerce application developers want to support as many mobile devices as possible. One approach might be to format the content in WML (wireless markup Language) which would make the application available for handleds. What’s wrong with this picture? Plenty. Supporting all the different types of available mobile devices requires either an extraordinary amount of development effort or a third -party solution.
Sorting through all the third-party solutions is a project in itself as, we learned through our rfi, but with due diligence, you can find excellent tools that vastly simplify the process of developing mobile applications. Just don’t underestimate the amount of work this requires. Installing and evaluating these platforms are comparable in time and difficulty to working with a new computer operating system.
7. WIRELESS ASP
These third-party solutions are middleware platforms that typically translate from XML/HTML format located at the customer site to the appropriate wireless format, whether HDML ( a precursor to WAP), HTML, WML or a format understood by interactive pagers. You can deploy these platforms yourself by purchasing a server license, or the vendor can host the platform as an ASP. The platform can also be hosted by a wireless ISP, such as GOAMERICA or OMNISKY corp.
Unfortunately , the conversion from XML or HTML to WML is far from automatic. With nearly all these third party solutions, the XML or HTML content must be created fro the ground up and adhere to strict rules and templates, often in conjunction with SDKS and tools provided by the vendor. Because of a lack of standardization, the rules and templates are specific to each ASP. Thus, if you design Oracle Mobile’s portal-to-go XML, you’ll be limited to Oracle Mobile’s platform to translate the content to the various wireless formats.
Converting from XML to mobile formats will be much more reliable and flexible than starting HTML,HTML conversions essentially involve screen scrapping, in which the middleware platform captures portions of the Web page to create mobile content. This approach is highly vulnerable to changes such as new page layouts. With XML, application developers can use specific tags to create mobile content that the middleware can interpret in an unambiguous , consistent fashion.
The middleware can perform other functions as well, such as delivering mobile content using transport protocols better suited to wireless (“typical protocols involved with a wireless ASPs are middleware platform”)
This architecture is technically efficient, as it enables standard internet communications between the middleware platform and the content application provider. Application developers can deploy their applications on existing Web platforms. The architecture also allows the middleware platform to deliver optimized content to the user with the most appropriate protocols for the connection.
However, the solutions are vendor specific and require a considerable commitment to middleware or ASP. Many of these ASPs are new, and their long term viability is unproven. In fact, many wireless middleware companies have come and gone over the past five years.
Increasingly, major software vendors are adding capabilities to their web and database platforms to support mobile formats. This could eventually obviate third-party solutions , though such solutions are likely to have broader network and device support for quite some time.
Watch also for the role the internet portals will play. These portals are in a strong position to integrate, and eventually subsume, the ASP function.
Further more they can provide a place for merchants to situate themselves. For many users, the mobile environment will become an extension of their existing Internet environment. Some wireless portals, such as GOAMERICA
And OMINISKY, are focusing on the mobile environment exclusively. It makes sense for these trailblazers to start providing financial services such as e-wallets or gateways to e-wallets.
Finally, various industry organizations are seeking to standardize mobile-commerce methods and architecture, examples include Fundamo, the Global Mobile Commerce Forum, the mobey Forum, the Mobile Electronics transactions initiative, Radicchio and the wireless Data Forum. So for, these organizations are long on stating the problems and issues involved, and short on delivering actual solutions.
8. THE TROUBLE WITH WAP
WAP is getting a bad rap. Originally toured as a panavea for the wireless industry, the Wireless Application Protocol. Is now getting bad press because of interoperability problems and minuscule market adoption where it’s been deployed. WAP does indeed have interoperability issues . For example, vendors browser and gateway implementations are inconsistent.
But this is being addressed by new interoperability testing programs. Furthermore, some critics dislike having to learn a new markup language.
WML(wireless markup language) to work with WAP. But that’s exactly What XML (Extensible Markup Language) is all about. WML is based on XML, the very nature of which is extensibility, to allow new markups for particular applications. WAP also delivers on the promise of a network independent solution. A WAP application doesn’t have to take into account the kind of cellular technology in use nor the underlying network protocols, so long as the network supports WAP.
No, the problem with WAP is that it doesn’t deliver on its fundamental promise to let application developers develop their content is one format for all wireless networks. The result has been far different. WAP is real, and may operators, particularly in Europe will support it. But in the United States, most of the big operators, including AT&T wireless, Sprint PCS and Verizon wireless, are still using HDML(Handheld Device Markup Language), WAP’s predecessor. Why? Because they started working with HDML before WAP was standardized. Also HDML offers more features and ironically, better interoperability than WAP, since wireless browsers and gateways come from one company, open wave systems U.S. operators do say they’ll eventually move to WAP, but only when a newer version becomes available.
Meanwhile, interactive pagers and handheld devices favor HDML approaches, not WML or HDML. NTTDOCOMo, hugely successfully in Japan with its I_mode service (which is based on a subset of HTML), is now trying to export I-mode to the rest of the world. The net result: WAP delivers only to a small slice of the total wireless market. And that’s the real trouble with WAP.
9. SECURITY
The wireless model we have described raises a serious security concern since ASP might decrypt messages received from the mobile unit. Some ASPs can pass on messages without decrypting them; you should investigate this aspect with vendors of interest. As for the security protocols used in the mobile unit and wireless ASP or the middleware platform typical protocols include SSL with 3DES encryption.
The wireless model we have described raises a serious security concern since ASP might decrypt messages received from the mobile unit. Some ASPs can pass on messages without decrypting them; you should investigate this aspect with vendors of interest. As for the security protocols used in the mobile unit and wireless ASP or the middleware platform typical protocols include SSL with 3DES encryption.
However, may Internet authentication and encryption methods are computationally intensive. Companies such as Certicom corp., ITS and diversinet are developing security solutions based on new methods elliptic-curve cryptography, for example that are better suited to small devices. The wireless ASP or middleware platform can then transfer from these mobile specific security protocols and conventional Internet security protocols.
10. SETTLEMENT AND PAYMENTS
Most of today’s mobile-commerce applications are extensions of Web based e-commerce solutions, which typically use credit cards for payment. However, as these applications mature and the variety of mobile-commerce transactions broadens, settlement systems will have to change. Simply put we nedd generally available, secure electronic wallet and electronic-cash mechanisms. Thus will take years, but many approaches have already been introduced.
To make purchases using many of today’s Web-based commerce applications customers must enter their credit card information clearly an unwieldy approach with a mobile device and one that raises security concerns. If the credit card is already on file with a merchant all the user has to do is authenticate himself or herself. But users don’t want to have to register their credit cards with numerous merchants.
Credit card companies and other organizations are working to solve this problem by developing electronic-wallet mechanisms, these hold users financial information and perhaps shipping info, and many contain funds as well. By supporting a particular wallet system, you give your customers a convenient way to pay for purchases. Some wireless ASPs, such as Snaz Commerce solutions, hoset such wallet mechanism and provide a mobile shopping portal for merchants to plug into.
Wireless carriers also are in a position to play a strong role. They already have billing relationships with customers and could handle billing for merchants. NITDOCOMO in Japan does this today with its I-mode service, for which the carrier collects 9 percent from merchants. On the other hand .
This role I beyond many carriers comfort level, since it exposes them to credit risks better handled by banks.
One reason for the initial popularity of financially oriented m-commerce applications is that the financial institution already has users account information on file and is simply allowing them to manipulate their accounts-letting them buy or sell stocks, for example, or transfer funds from one account to another. The challenge is to allow a user to easily purchase goods or services from any merchant or institution in a secure and cost-effective manner.
Internet economics demands a reduction in the number of middlemen involved. Today’s payment systems credit card companies, for instance involve a number of intermediaries and will not scale to high volumes of smaller transactions. This is where companies such as Ecash will play a role.
Ecash’s payment architecture lets banks offer electronic-cash services to customers , who can then spend that cash with participating merchants.
Although I their infancy, such payment infrastructure could truly revolutionize mobile commerce and, in the process, massively disrupt existing financial systems even making ATM’s obsolete. However, this will all take time. But if they don’t proceed, they’ll be relegated to irrelevance local area wireless connections. In this scenario customers establish direct systems at the merchants locations. Palm and Hewlett-Packard co.s' verifone recently agreed to lunch exactly such an initiative. The infrared link simply replaces the credit-card swipe, and the merchant uses its existing back-end credit-card swipe, and the merchant uses its existing back-end credit-card payment system. This approach completely sidesteps the architectures discussed above.
11. SPEED BUMPS
Despite this market’s potential, numerous speed bumps exist. Most important, no magic elixir can convert existing Web sites to a mobile format .
User connections are slow and screen real estate is limited, but that’s just the physical problems. User’s mobile context will force the logic of applications to change.
For example, the types of airline information users want at the airport and the travel transactions they wish to conduct are inherently different from those they’ll seek when they’re planning a vacation from their home two months before a trip. At the airport, a user will want immediate access to real-time alternatives if a flight is cancelled, the cost to jump onto another airline and the ability to instantly purchase the new ticket.
And the problems don’t end with the applications. Wireless networks are barely up to the task of mobile-commerce. To harness this category’s full potential, wireless networks need to be packet-based, to provide permanent virtual connections that allow faster transactions and the ability to push alerts. Higher speeds will also improve session quality. But with the exception of CDPD and early-stage GPRS rollouts, it’ll be at least two years before all of today’s cellular networks are upgraded to faster packet data services. Today’s networks are suitable for many applications. But stick to applications in which information can be conveyed in small chunks and that don’t require a lot of interaction. And keep them text based.
Although we believe location technology will be available by 2002 technical hurdles and privacy issues are associated with deploying a technology that lets organizations know users constant whereabouts. At this point, don’t worry about how to take advantage of this information perhaps two years from now. Companies will travel the bumpy road to offer mobile-commerce services. But the next effect will be narrower initial scope of applications and delays in the widespread adoption of mobile commerce. While industry enthusiasts predict large-scale adoption within three years realistically this’ll likely be two years beyond that. If ever there were an opportunity to be a pioneer, this is it. The rewards are sure to weigh the risks.
12. ADVANTAGES
Assuming the user is in a region that is covered by the network, the technology is available anytime, anywhere, while one is on the move.
As far as time critical transactions, such as stock trading, banking and travel planning/changing itinerary, are concerned, M-commerce provides an easy, quick and effective solution.
Advertising, rather than paralleling its E-commerce equivalent (banner ads, link after link connecting sites), will consist of direct and personal marketing to the individual based on characteristics such as spending habits and price range, GPS position, time of day, etc.
Meanwhile, a meaningful discussion of the comparisons between E- and M-commerce should also include mention of the weaknesses of the mobile Internet, including:
Generic mass advertising will not be possible.
Customer information (not contained on a phones SIM card) will be less easily collected due to screen constraints (for example, when ordering books from Amazon.com, customers will not be willing to enter loads of personal data, as Amazon currently requests from its online clients.
M-commerce is not suited to lengthy and complex transactions, such as real estate and automobile purchases, nor for complicated and involved business-to-business transactions.
13. Travel Industry
While many industries will thrive due to M-commerce technology, the travel industry is expected to be a major component of this market. Travel will benefit from all advantages of the m-commerce, including - ubiquity, interoperability, reachability, security, convenience, localisation and personalisation.
Specific applications of a mobile Internet device in the travel sector include the following:
Cross-urban transportation services (purchase of travel tickets, real-time arrival/departure information, receive delay/gate/connection information, confirmation, change itinerary, and frequent flyer information).
Urban transportation (taxi service, car/limousine service, and car rental).
Accommodations (lodging, wake-up calls, and food service/delivery).
Time/place sensitive information (traffic reports, weather reports, and direction services).
Local information (currency rates, language translation, retail/bank hours and holidays, and emergency contact information such as medical and police assistance)
Entertainment (museums, theatres, restaurants).
14. ACTIVATING THE MOBILE MARKET
The mobile commerce is one of the groups of applications killer of the Society of the Mobile Information. With Nokia like partner, you will be able to offer solutions of highest level in terms of applications of m-commerce, payment and emergency. The happened one in the mobile commerce not only depends on the single applications, but also from their ability to work entirety without difficulties. The sophistication total is essential in order to render simpler the interaction between the applications possible for makes a subscriber to it to you. The advance solutions of Nokia - Nokia Payment Solution and Nokia Signet Solution - they help to construct an atmosphere of easy fruizione for the applications of m-commerce.
The Nokia Payment Solution is a payment platform that supports specific WAP 1,1 and 1,2 and the hit to the web. The base characteristics are the authorization to the payments and the recording of the transactions, with functions of price, instruments and compensation. The Nokia Payment Solution supports multiple pay channels, like debit and credit cards, telephone bill prepaid and postpaid and borsellino virtual, as an example for the micropayments. The Nokia Signet Solution helps you to instill in makes a subscriber the confidence to you necessary in order to have use of the offer of bancari services and payment. Nokia acts on every single element of the transaction process in order to supply one solution from sure point to point for the transactions furnish.
The solutions of Nokia for the mobile commerce preview the standards and the common architectures of the field, like WAP, WIM (Wireless Identity Module), WTLS (Wireless Transport Security Layer) and Wireless PKI (Public Key Infrastructure). The WIM, as an example, is one of the fundamental elements of specific WAP 1,2, that it allows memorizzare all give you of emergency, as keys and certifys to you, in the cellular telephone. Moreover, it is in a position to carrying out cryptographic operations. The Nokia Payment Solution and the Nokia Signet Solution constitute fundamental elements of the solution from point to point of Nokia for the services of Mobile Internet. Parts endured with the supply of services you furnish sure thanks to Nokia.
15. PROSPECTS
By 2005 the mobile phone will be the most commonly used computing device, and a powerful purchasing tool for customers. Consumers will use mobile phones as a familiar, convenient and inexpensive channel for access to goods and services.
Banks, retailers and travel companies will make their brand and their offerings available to customers at the touch of a button - anywhere.
For banks, retailers and mobile phone operators, the burgeoning mobile commerce industry provides unlimited opportunities for business growth. Forward thinking companies are already integrating mobile commerce into their businesses to establish vital competitive edge. By integrating mobile commerce into traditional channels, suppliers can increase the value that customers obtain from their phone. Giving customers the opportunity to conduct business on the move builds loyalty and can address high churn and downward pressure on tariffs that operators experience in today’s competitive telecoms environment.
The growth of mobile commerce is encouraging banks around the world to work with mobile operators as they seek to exploit the benefits of this new channel to market. Mobile commerce can unlock substantial growth opportunity and establish a strong position for operators’ brands in the markets of the 21st century.
16. CONCLUSION
M-commerce is generally referred to as all transactions that are conducted via a mobile phone. Effectively, it is the wireless equivalent of the fixed Internet E-commerce. When there is increase in network reliability and redundancy, improve security Mobile commerce is very effective .
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